A place, which has been figuring on the “must visit” list of any serious traveler for the past two thousand years.A fairy tale land in the mysterious Schwarzwald. A town so irresistible that it made Bill Clinton, the former President of the United States remark “Baden Baden is so nice, they had to name it twice”. Baden Baden! Yes, beautiful, bewitching “Baden-Baden” in the black forest. Translated into English it is something as laughable as “Bathe Bathe”. Glowing amidst the glacial lakes of the Black Forest, Baden Baden has, for centuries, been the de rigueur halt in the itinerary of the Rich and Famous, Emperors and Soldiers, Film stars and Poets. Intrigued by this seemingly facetious invitation, “to come and bathe” that Baden Baden has been sending out to the world for two millennia, countless visitors have crossed its portal to enter an eclectic paradise of sizzling thermal baths, haute couture shopping, and exclusive museums.
Baden Baden, the millionaire’s town, sits pretty at the western foothills of the Black Forest, in the picturesque Karlsruhe region of Germany. While Emperor Caragulla was said to have accumulated loyalty points in the spas in Baden Baden way back in the second century A.D., Eighteenth and nineteenth century visitors to Baden Baden include the indomitable Queen Victoria, the French emperor Napolean III, Emperor Wilhelm I of the Prussian empire, the musical wizard Johannes Brahms and the Great Russian novelist Dostoevsky. Twentieth century has not been slow in sending its share of the well-healed and powerful. Bill Clinton and Dalai Lama were here too. Though Baden Baden still continues to be a magnet for the rich and famous, it has room for the mediocre and undistinguished too. And so, though we did not belong in the footnotes of the Annexure to the lists of the grand and celebrated, go we did, to lovely Baden Baden by the Oos. It is a travel of just two hours and forty seven minutes from little known Kassel, but a journey leading into a timeless land that defines Joi de vivre. So boarding ICE 77 at Kassel WilhemshoeBanhoff at 2.37 pm we set off for Baden Baden.
Crumbling Gleiss 5 (platform no 5) in BadenBadenBanhoff ( railway station ) did not amuse me. The Inter City Express abandoned us at 5.24 pm and whizzed away unconcerned. The promise was to bring us to Baden Baden from Kassel in 2hrs and 47 minutes and having done so with unrelenting German exactitude, hurtled away with exaggerated indifference. Respect mingled with fear for the DeutchBahn’s precision had prepared us adequately enough to tear our bags and jump ourselves off the train, all at once. Rattled but in one peace, we gathered our bags and walked out to a two-car moffusil taxi stand. The taxi driver’s reaction to our address and the increasingly cute looking houses and prissy boulevards, however, cheered us up. Twelve Euros shorter and twenty minutes later we were dropped off at the grandstanding 165 year old SteigenbergerEuropaïschar hotel on the splendid Kaiseralle opposite the world famous casino of Baden Baden. Once there I was ready to believe that this was truly the town with the maximum number of millionaires in Germany.
Steignenberger is a fine hotel with great looking rooms and a scrumptious breakfast thrown in, sans air-conditioning. July can be warm and sleeping with open windows could mean disturbed sleep with noises floating up. If I recall correctly, the promotional flyer said that King Wilhelm of Prussia stayed here. Reading this, helped alleviate the discomfort of a humid room and inflate my middle class ego. Besides, Steignenberger gave us value for money with its fabulous location. All I had to do was sit in the private balcony overlooking the Oos and lift my eyes through the overhanging bunches of orchids for a glance of the majestically poised Trinkhalle, the drinking hall with Corinthian columns holding the noble ceiling that displays murals depicting the legends of the Black Forest. Visitors can sip Spa water free of cost at this place between 10.30 Am to 6 pm on week days and feast on the rolling greens and hike up into the un-peopled woods behind. The Town information office is also housed in the same precincts. The Kurhaus, the renowned casino with its Corinthian columns and neo classical interiors is the other celebrated edifice in Baden Baden that I could look into sitting in my balcony. For the bathers, Caracalla Spa with its clinically hygienic interiors and huge thermal baths is reputedly an awesome place to spend money and time. The Freidrichsbad Roman Irish bath flyer I picked up in the hotel did not encourage the prude that I am, with its mandatory nude bathing. But I overheard guests in the hotel gush over the overwhelming experience. So if you are brave and can bare go ahead without a care.
Mummelsee, 55 minutes from Baden Baden was more my kind of place. A lake on the hills on the Schwarzwaldhochstraβe, girdled with walking trails, an irresistible souvenir shop that promised original black forest clocks and a elegant modern chapel standing aloft the speeding road. Hire a car and drive down or easier still, take bus no 245 from LeopoldPlatz which will drop you off at Mummelsee. Hike through the nature trails, shop at the souvenir shop till you faint in pleasure, and get ready to get on to 245 waiting for you every one hour to get back to Baden Baden. As I rode on the Schwarzwaldhochstraβe, to Mummelsee and back I became acutely conscious of the stirrings of envy in my heart. It is okay, I consoled myself, this jealousy, for isn’t it human to envy the prodigious blessings those people enjoyed. The good Lord says that the meek shall inherit the earth, but I do not recall that the BadenBadeners shall inherit Paradise. My bilious reverie was broken with my husband pointing out the fabulous hotel that Bill Clinton stayed during his visit to Baden Baden.
For those of us who were there to see Baden Baden beyond the spas and the Casino, there are the splendid museums. FreiderBurda museum of Art is one. And if some one can get as lucky as we did, there is the Faberge Museum showing off THE FABERGE EASTER EGG. The museum was thrown open only in May and we were there in June! We did not believe our luck when the Concierge at the hotel thrust the slick looking brochure with a giant pink egg sporting a clock face balanced on a pink pedestal, all in pink enameled gold and diamonds. Hugging the flyer to my dear heart we walked down the 500 yards from the hotel to the Faberge Museum GmbH at Sophienstr.30. The admission fee to this private museum is 20 Euros per Adult and 10 for students, youngsters and senior citizens. We tried explaining to Niela the charming assistant at the ticket desk that the three of us were family and so could get admission with the family pass at 32 Euros. But with her firm, heavily accented English, the pretty lady convinced us to buy two adult and one student ticket as my daughter is fifteen. Convinced that 50 Euros was a worthwhile investment to see up close the world’s most expensive Faberge egg we deposited the canon and Nikon in the cloak room (photos were a strict No No !) and walked up the chiseled granite staircase leading towards the exhibits and bumped into SergejAvtonoshkin, the Russian curator photographing and cataloguing the 3 million dollar jade Buddha sticking out his ruby tongue seated in his glass enclosure.
This museum in Baden Baden is the first and only exhibition in the world dedicated to the Russian imperial jeweler Gustav Faberge. It is part of the over 3500 pieces private collection of the Russian tycoon Alexander Ivanov, who chose Baden Baden over his native Russia to exhibit his priceless collection. Avtonoshkin an amiable giant and the only English speaking gent in the staff volunteered to take us around the exhibits and explained the history of the objects de art on display beginning with dazzling pink Rothschild egg. Apart from Faberge, the museum also exhibits a few exclusive objects crafted by renowned jewelers like Cartier, Bolin, Boucheron, Falize and others. Stepping through the rooms hearing Sergej narrate the history and recount the tragedy hounding the object was surreal. Till that moment, Faberge, for me was a hushed whisper in a Jeffery Archer or perhaps a fleeting glance in the hands of Roger Moore as he rattles of the history of the emerald green Faberge egg all the while tossing the fake egg in the film Octopussy. Closing time at 7pm saw as bid good bye to Sergej and Niela after a coffee on the house, and step out onto Sophienstraβe, so pretty, so stylish, so wickedly opulent, and yet so endearing, I almost forgot I was leaving Baden Baden the next morning.